Identifying knowledge gaps in hypersaline systems supporting the global electrical transition: invertebrate community structure in salars from the lithium triangle
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2025
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PeerJ Inc.
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Following decades of mining impacts, South America’s hypersaline wetlands (salars)face increasing threats from lithium extraction to support global decarbonisation.Although globally important, salars are understudied and information needed tounderstand environmental impacts is lacking. Modern ecological studies on salarshave focused on microbial community composition and function but other taxa areless studied, including resident and migratory reptiles and birds and their aquaticinvertebrate prey.Given the scale and immediate nature of the threats associated with lithiumexploitation, we must deepen our understanding of salar biology, but this is impededby logistic/financial restrictions given the heightened costs of sampling in these oftenremote, extreme environments. Given the pressing demand for information, wecollated/analysed information from the literature. We generated lists of invertebratetaxa present in 63 hypersaline environments from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile andPeru, and examined relationships between invertebrate community structure andphysicochemical factors. We recorded 46 different taxa, with the Centropagidae beingthe most frequently recorded taxon across systems. Multivariate analyses of communitystructure showed significant clustering among sites. Variation in community structurewas best explained by maximum salinity (18%). Geographical location or ecosystemsize had no obvious effect on community structure. We provide a useful broad view ofaquatic invertebrate diversity in the hypersaline salars but highlight the general lack ofinformation regarding the ecology of these ecosystems
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Atacama Desert, Altiplano, Benthos, Hypersaline lakes, Multivariate analysis, Zooplankton